Back in May, a few months after the fog of last season’s NFL coaching carousel had cleared on a frantic process that saw the Washington Commanders select Dan Quinn as their next head coach, Detroit Lions offensive coordinator Ben Johnson spoke at the podium, in essence about why Johnson was not getting ready to run a practice with rookie Jayden Daniels.
The carousel is a uniquely absurd time on the NFL calendar, when speculation, reporting and inference all get hurled together and can cause us to leap to certain conclusions. Johnson was viewed as a heavy front-runner for the Commanders’ job and the fallout of Johnson pulling out of said job—along with the timing of his backing out—led many to jump to conclusions about Johnson the person. While I will always believe that Johnson was legitimately bothered by the prospect of losing in the NFC title game and felt the legitimate pull of unfinished business (anyone who has ever seen the Lions make a mistake in practice and Johnson’s reaction to it will side with me), which was a main precursor to his backing out of a second Commanders interview, Johnson also spoke at length about his thought process.
